1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electrically heated wax guns, and, more particularly, to an improved air-operated wax gun for making jewelry and the like.
2. Description of Related Art
Wax modeling for jewelry and sculpture is known. In particular, professionals who design jewelry have been using what has been referred to as a "MATT GUN" to transform sticks of hard wax into wire of different shapes and thickness. An important advantages of the Matt Gun lies in the fact that the extruded wire obtainable from a Matt Gun can vary in thickness so as to produce jewelry and miniature sculptures in three-dimensional character with a minimum of weight.
The Matt Gun has the ability to control pressure on the extruding wax, by means of a person's thumb pressing against a plunger, allowing a jewelry maker to produce constantly changing characteristics for their designs. Furthermore, because it is possible to vary the temperature of the Matt Gun, the extruded wax is more flexible and can be manipulated to a far greater extent than with conventional techniques or other known devices. Also, another advantage of the Matt Gun is that it uses a hard wax, therefore, eliminating the problems of damaged models made with any device that uses soft wax, or the like.
However, it has been found that the Matt Gun is not easy to use, and can cause fatigue in that it requires the user to press a plunger at the rear of the gun with their thumb, while attempting to hold the gun, and controlling the temperature of the gun, to extrude the wax out of the tip of the gun.
Other molten wax applicators and devices are known for use in the dental industry, or in the manufacture of various mechanical appliances. These devices tend to use softer waxes than the Matt Gun, and therefore, are not as useful in forming jewelry and small sculpture design. Examples of such known prior art devices are set forth in the following U.S. utility and design patents:
1,905,987 2,653,603 3,554,408 3,690,776 3,800,122 3,831,815 3,902,043 5,061,178 4,301,357 4,691,703 4,813,870 4,819,842 4,964,367 5,346,394 5,524,809 5,816,450 and Des. 382,456
Although the known prior art produce improved results, they still do not overcome the fatigue and other problems of handling when extruding hot wax from a gun encountered with the Matt Gun described above. Therefore, there exists a need in the art for an easily operated and less fatiguing device for extruding hard wax and forming jewelry and small sculpture designs.